Front page editorial cartoon from the Washington Herald of April 14, 1915.

Time, like an ever rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the Opening Day.

– “O God Our Help In Ages Past”

Editor’s Note: An entry on knuckleball has been added to the Sports section to note that it is one word.

knuckleball

One word is an exception to Webster’s New World College Dictionary.

Knuckleball does seem to be the prevailing spelling these days, though it appears to have started out as “knuckle ball.” The Dickson Baseball Dictionary gives both spellings, and notes that its earliest recorded usage came in a 1906 Baseball Magazine story, just as Eddie Chicotte popularized it.

But what’s most interesting about the Associated Press’s change of style, 102 years later, is the story that seems to have prompted it — this dispatch from Tokyo by Eric Talmadge Wednesday about a 16-year-old Japanese girl who hopes to play professional baseball on the strength of her knuckleball:

TOKYO (AP) — Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield was the inspiration for a 16-year-old girl who has been drafted to play for a Japanese pro baseball team. …

Eri Yoshida was chosen this week by the Kobe 9 Cruise in the low-budget, four-team western Japanese league, which is due to start its first season in April. She would be Japan’s first female professional baseball player.

Yoshida says she was inspired to learn how to throw the knuckleball after seeing a video of Wakefield.

“It’s funny that I’ve reached that point in my career that people want to emulate me,” Wakefield said. “I’m glad I had people like the Niekros, Charlie Hough and Tom Candiotti that I could look up to. I am deeply humbled that it is me this time.”

But it just so happens that I’ve heard from three people this week — all with stories about, or an interest in, Johnny Hodapp. One particularly encouraging e-mail came today, on what would have been Hoddy’s 103rd birthday.

Coincidence? Serendipity? Divine Intervention? I’m not ruling out any of them.

So I’m inspired to get on a more regular regimen of updating this site. Last week, I finished copying and preserving my grandmother’s scrapbook of old newspaper clippings that’s a wonderful trove of information about Hodapp’s career and the era in which he played.

I also got a very nice e-mail from someone who was a 10-year-old boy when he met Hoddy in the 1960s and heard stories about his career. More on that later.

And sometimes, little scraps of information seem to come out-of-the-blue, almost as whispers from long-dead contemporaries.

Here’s one: An obituary in the Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum on Wednesday recaps the life of Jane F. Smith — who had an intriguing connection to Hodapp:

Jane’s late husband, Hugh, who preceded her in death in 1980, was a roommate of two Cleveland Indians, Johnny Hodapp and Clint Brown. He became close friends with many of the Cleveland Indians who won the 1948 World Series, including Kenny Keltner, Mel Harder, Bob Lemon, Al Lopez, and Lou Boudreau.

There’s got to be some fascinating stories behind that one. I’d love to hear from Hugh Smith’s family about how that came to be.

Makes you wonder how many other stories might still be out there.

He’s certainly a great story and a notable figure in and of himself. He played with Babe Ruth, won a World Series ring with the Cincinnati Reds, thrice led the league in stolen bases and was the first batter in the first game ever televised.

But the stories led me to wonder: Who died and made Werber baseball’s longevity champ.

With a little bit of programming and data from the Baseball Databank, I came up with this list of 37 players:

name	birth	death	age
Harry Wright	1835-01-10	1895-10-03	60
Dickey Pearce	1836-02-29	1908-09-18	72
Al Barker	1839-01-18	1912-09-15	73
Al Reach	1840-05-25	1928-01-14	87
Harry Berthrong	1844-01-01	1928-04-28	84
Phonney Martin	1845-08-04	1933-05-24	87
Harry Schafer	1846-08-14	1935-02-28	88
George Wright	1847-01-28	1937-08-21	90
John McKelvey	1847-08-27	1944-05-31	96
Jack Gleason	1854-07-14	1944-09-04	90
James Lehan	1856-05-14	1946-07-18	90
Henry Jones	1857-05-10	1955-05-31	98
John Leighton	1861-10-04	1956-10-31	95
Dummy Hoy	1862-05-23	1961-12-15	99
Buster Burrell	1866-12-22	1962-05-08	95
Bill Kinsler	1867-11-09	1963-08-10	95
John Grimes	1869-04-17	1964-01-17	94
John Hollison	1870-05-03	1969-08-19	99
Ralph Miller	1873-03-15	1973-05-08	100
Charlie Emig	1875-04-05	1975-10-02	100
Paddy Livingston	1880-01-14	1977-09-19	97
Sam Edmonston	1883-08-30	1979-04-12	95
Red Morgan	1883-10-06	1981-03-25	97
Jack Snyder	1886-10-06	1981-12-13	95
Carl Manda	1886-11-16	1983-03-09	96
John Daley	1887-05-25	1988-08-31	101
Bill Otis	1889-12-24	1990-12-15	100
Chet Hoff	1891-05-08	1998-09-17	107
Ike Kahdot	1899-10-22	1999-03-31	99
Karl Swanson	1900-12-17	2002-04-03	101
Ralph Erickson	1902-06-25	2002-06-27	100
Ray Hayworth	1904-01-29	2002-09-25	98
Paul Hopkins	1904-09-25	2004-01-02	99
Ray Cunningham	1905-01-17	2005-07-30	100
Howdy Groskloss	1906-04-10	2006-07-15	100
Ray Berres	1907-08-31	2007-02-01	99
Billy Werber	1908-06-20	Alive	100

A few interesting tidbits:

• There are two brothers, Harry and George Wright.
• There are two Hall of Famers on the list: The Wright brothers.
• If you’ve never heard of most of these guys, you’re not alone. Four played in only one major league game. Seven more played in fewer than 10 games.
• Oldest former major leaguer ever: Chet Hoff, who played in the American League from 1911 to 1915 and died in 1998 at the age of 107.

Obviously, this list does not include players whose dates of birth or death are not known. As of 2006, there were 300 “missing” players — presumed dead — whose dates of death are not known, according to SABR’s Biographical Research Committee. There were 600 more players whose dates of birth were not known.